1. Field
One embodiment of the present invention relates to a content processing apparatus, and a content processing method, for simultaneous parallel execution of various processes for various content, such as recording, reproduction, and movement. In particular, the present invention relates to a content processing apparatus, and a content processing method, which reproduce a received broadcast content for example, while recording the content on an external hard disk drive (HDD).
2. Description of the Related Art
Television broadcast has been digitalized in recent years. For example, in Japan, terrestrial digital broadcasting has started in addition to digital direct broadcasting by satellites (DBS) such as broadcasting satellite (BS) and 110° communication satellite (CS).
A conventional digital television broadcast receiver connectable to a hard disk (LAN-HDD) through a network is known (refer to Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2008-28659). This conventional broadcast receiver has a “follow-up replay” function, which records digital video and audio data of a received broadcast content (i.e., a program title) on a hard disk on a network, simultaneously with and in parallel with reproduction of the digital video and audio data recorded on the hard disk.
The Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2008-28659 discloses a measurement technique for measuring a communication speed of recording and reproducing data to specify content that can be stably followed-up replayed by using a hard disk connected to a network. However, this measurement technique is not adaptable to a situation, in which processing depends on operating speeds and processing capacities of various kinds of external apparatus connected as an option, and normal processing is difficult. As a general-purpose external device, there is a network attached storage (NAS), a universal serial bus (USB)-HDD, a DVD recorder, a content server, etc. For example, when reproduction from an HDD is executed simultaneously and in parallel with transmission of content as a media server, normal processing is ensured if the HDD is a built-in HDD or a special specified HDD. But, if the HDD is a universal external device such as a USB-HDD or NAS, processing depends on a speed of reading/writing an HDD and a CPU power used for reading/writing an HDD, and processing may fail.